The following analysis landed in my inbox this morning. Sunrise Tippeconnie, who recently shared his thoughts on Funny People with the candler blog, is a filmmaker and writer in Oklahoma City.
For me to respond to Basterds, I must first note my reaction of Death Proof, which over time feels more and more like it provides the most revelation about Tarantino and his relationship with the “cinema.” Death Proof describes a world where those that don’t fully comprehend the rules of “cinema” are eliminated (the women in the first half talk about high school movies, are surrounded by cinema clichés, but cannot make it to see the end of the film, while those with knowledge of film’s history and making survive through to “the end.” While Quentin the bartender, perhaps a more “true” image of Tarantino, is balanced out with a stumbling cinematic fake of a doppelgänger in Stunt Man Mike, a character that perhaps doesn’t know the trade of filmmaking quite so well as his stunt women targets (and perhaps also fakes his film credits list in hopes of trapping his next victims, a deadly misstep of cinematic naivety in a rule-enforced genre). So, as Death Proof provides cinematic knowledge as survival, Basterds shows another side of the coin, the results of survival through cinema’s naivety: the “Propaganda Film”. Read on…